As stated in this week’s article about City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s Viz Valley gang injunction, Herrera’s move gives D. 10 candidates an opportunity to show they are tracking all the issues in a district that is home to the city’s largest public housing site.

As C.L.A.E.R. Project director Sharen Hewitt put it at a debriefing session about the injunction, “D. 10 has been reduced to the Lennar issue, and that’s what’s criminal.”

And the injunction is becoming part of the dialogue in the D. 10 race, with eleven candidates in that race sounding off on the injunction, many of them critiquing Dennis Herrera's approach and/or advocating for legal representation for those named in the suit, and more services in this historically neglected district. Read more »

Jared Blumenfeld told the Guardian that his son, who is in the sixth grade, was grossed out when he found out what his dad had been working on recently -- crafting a new rule that would ban ships from dumping sewage into California’s coastal waters. The youngster quite sensibly expressed disbelief that up until now, such a thing hadn’t been adequately dealt with. Read more »

We have been happily married five years and I think we're kind of out of ideas for new things to do. I think we're in a rut, and the weird thing is we're not talking about it. We usually talk about everything, but we're not talking about this! What are some new ideas for us, and how do I bring it up that I think we should try something new?

Genre junkies, rejoice! Neil Marshall — 2002 werewolf thriller Dog Soldiers, 2005 cave-monster chiller The Descent, and 2008 post-apocalyptic actioner Doomsday — has a brand-new film: Centurion. The latest from the man some call "the new John Carpenter" is getting a release with actual fanfare (however humble in comparision to, say, The Expendables or whatever), though you'd best hustle to the theater if you care to see Centurion, about a Roman soldier doing battle with tribal Picts in what's now Scotland, on the big screen. (It's also now available On Demand, but c'mon: the big screen is always better.) Evident in Marshall's films is the fact that he himself is a movie fan, which makes him all the more pleasurable to talk to. [Spoiler warning: there are some. Just so you know.]

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Centurion takes a documented event, the building of Hadrian's Wall, and creatively fills in some of the history surrounding it. Why did you write the story this way?

Neil Marshall: It was kind of a case of compacting a couple of dates, which weren't that far apart anyway. The myth of the Ninth Legion is based around 117 AD, which is when the film is set. That was when the entire Ninth Legion marched into Scotland and supposedly vanished without a trace. Historians have since been spoilsports and disproved that, and proved that they were attacked but they didn't get massacred, they were dispersed, and such like. But then, in 122 AD, Hadrian's Wall started being built. And I just thought, "Well, couldn't I tie the two in together somehow, that logically, what happened to the Ninth Legion could have been part of the reason for Hadrian to build the wall in the first place?" So, yeah, it was a question of kind of condensing that slightly. Read more »

Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier announced today that she will file an appeal with the California Supreme Court by the end of tomorrow (August 25), following today's California Court of Appeal ruling that found she was ineligible to seek another term.

There are cops at every level on the force who ought to be fired for misconduct — and the discipline process has been so slow that it's utterly ineffective.

EDITORIAL You have to give San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón credit: he talks more about reform, and seems to take discipline more seriously, than anyone who has headed the department in at least 30 years. In the wake of the crime lab scandal, he did what the department should have done years ago: ordered a complete investigation of the background of every officer on the force to determine if anyone has skeletons that might affect his or her ability to testify in criminal cases.

But if the list of problem officers becomes nothing more than a closely guarded secret used only when the district attorney fears for the future of a criminal case, the exercise will have only limited value.

The Market-Octavia intersection is one of the most dangerous places in the city for bicyclists. Cars making an illegal right turn onto the freeway ramp hit riders; there were nine collisions in 2008 alone, and there have been 20 injury accidents since the freeway ramp opened. The city's built barriers and traffic signs, but the illegal turns continue.Read more »

Vast treatises have been written about the California mess and how we got where we are today. But a professor at UC Berkeley's school of public policy sums the whole thing up in one brilliant, short letter to his students. You can read the whole thing here (thanks, Calitics), but the gist is that today's generation of California kids is the collective victim of a massive swindle:Read more »

Remember John Stuart Mill? Is it still true that, while all conservatives aren't stupid, most stupid people are conservatives? Johnny and Tim discuss the relevance of the 19th Century philosopher's wisdom to today's Republican Party. You can listen after the jump. Read more »

San Francisco officials are watching closely to see if higher tolls on the Bay Bridge might help the city make the case for charging fees to drive into downtown in high-traffice periods -- and so far, the evidence is promising.

Since tolls increased July 1, an additional 4,000 commuters turning to BART -- and that means fewer cars on the bridge.The Bay Area Toll Authority elevated fees during the hours of 5 am to 10 am and 3 pm until 7 pm for crossing all bridges except the Golden Gate, which is managed by a different agency.Read more »

Labor and Democratic Party leaders are concerned – and rightly so – that labor's rank-and-file may not turn out in November to support labor-friendly Democrats in the massive numbers that played a major role in the election of President Obama and Democratic congressional majorities in 2008. Read more »

Today Johnny and Tim take a break from Meg Whitman and talk about why the Republicans are really upset about the Islamic center at ground zero -- and why Dr. Laura isn't a victim of censorship. Read more »